Are mosquito bites a risk of infection with HIV?
Throughout recorded history, mosquitoes and other arthropods have been responsible for spreading many epidemics. Plague was spread by fleas, typhus by lice, and malaria by mosquito. For malaria and yellow fever, the respective parasites (a protozoan and a virus) multiply in the mosquito, and then concentrate in its salivary gland. When the mosquito takes its next blood meal, the parasites pass with its saliva into the victims blood. No such model exists for AIDS. It should also be noted that mosquitoes suck blood; they do not inject blood from one person into another. Additional evidence that no animal intermediate is involved in HIV transmission comes from Africa. It is well known that African children play outside in mosquito-infested areas. Children would constitute a large percentage of African AIDS cases if the disease were mosquito-borne. Statistics show, however, that children represent a relatively small percentage of Africans with AIDS. Many African children suffer from malari
